Pitch: Buc-ees but for EV snobs

[swhme]

Alright, hear me out. I’ve been thinking about this for years, and I just need to put it out there so, many years from now, I can show this post to my kids and tell them how rich we could have been if daddy had just followed his dream of building electron stations.

Problems:

• EVs take longer to charge than cars take to fill up, and generally have a shorter range than gas cars.
• The rate of adoption of EVs is going parabolic, and I expect charging for road trips to become a MAJOR bottleneck in the next 3 years. You‘ve seen this for a few years with Teslas in certain corridors, but I expect non-Tesla EV sales to grow much faster than Tesla sales over the next few years.
• Most EV chargers today are poorly placed. If you’re lucky, you might be able to walk to fast food or an outlet mall. More likely, you’re at a Walmart.

To my mind, this presents a major market opportunity for a chain of chargers targeted at well-heeled EV drivers who are going to be stuck at your location for 30-60 minutes.

Ideally, this chain would have:

• A ton of chargers. 75+ charging stations at a minimum to make it worthwhile.
• 350v on every charger with a technician on site at least during high-traffic times to make sure they‘re all working properly
• Solar roofs over the charging stations
• Fast, consistent WiFi
• A valet on duty during high use times to move cars when they finish charging
• Healthish fast casual food options (chipotle, panera, etc), a local sit down restaurant to get a little local flavor
• Options for exercise (a walking path) and play area for kids at every location.
• Interesting shopping options for retail therapy

Done right, I think you could charge a premium for charging and people would plan their routes to be able to stop at your charging stations rather than some random Walmart. You’ve gotta turn the charging stop into something people are excited about, rather than something people see as a downside to EV ownership.

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[crashmtb]

doesnt buc-Ee’s already have chargers?
Seems like you’re just describing buc-ee’s of the not too distant future.

a valet? Haven’t you seen the documentary Ferris Bueller’s day off?

 

[swhme]

doesnt buc-Ee’s already have chargers?
Seems like you’re just describing buc-ee’s of the not too distant future.

a valet? Haven’t you seen the documentary Ferris Bueller’s day off?

Buc-ees is starting to get tesla superchargers, I’ve never seen one with CCS

 

[Longreach]

IIRC Buc-ees was one of the winning bids for the Texas public charging funds. Perfect for their model because people can come in, browse and buy crap whilst waiting for their charge to complete.

 

[Atlrivian]

That would be one hell of a draw from the grid to have 75 350kw chargers.

If only 1/2 the stalls are in use at 200kw draw apiece for 12 hours each a day 365 days a year, that works out to ~33Gwh in a year.

With some googling I found 1 gwh / year in the US takes a solar farm of roughly 3 acres. So to completely cover just the charging (yes I realize the solar isn't helping at night and there are other issues as well) you'd need 100 acres of solar for my example.

That doesn't account for times when all stalls are in use, or the power draw from all those stores / restaurants

My point is that for a bunch of fast chargers, rooftop solar doesn't really make a dent in the demand

All that said I love the idea. As so often happens on this forum just got lost in the weeds there.

 

[DaveA]

Bucees cut a deal for Tesla Superchargers….no CCS yet.

 

[irish26]

They built two buccee’s in Florida on I-95 in the last few years. Neither of them has a single charging station. That seemed incredibly short sighted to me. As mentioned here, buccees is the perfect destination for chargers on a road trip.

 

[swhme]

That would be one hell of a draw from the grid to have 75 350kw chargers.

If only 1/2 the stalls are in use at 200kw draw apiece for 12 hours each a day 365 days a year, that works out to ~33Gwh in a year.

With some googling I found 1 gwh / year in the US takes a solar farm of roughly 3 acres. So to completely cover just the charging (yes I realize the solar isn't helping at night and there are other issues as well) you'd need 100 acres of solar for my example.

That doesn't account for times when all stalls are in use, or the power draw from all those stores / restaurants

My point is that for a bunch of fast chargers, rooftop solar doesn't really make a dent in the demand

All that said I love the idea. As so often happens on this forum just got lost in the weeds there.

I know the roof wouldn’t cover the power need, or even close, but it would keep charging cars shaded and dry

 

[Longreach]

Bucees cut a deal for Tesla Superchargers….no CCS yet.

Buc-ees also won several of the TCEQ awards for building public charging stations. The money is the Texas share of the Volkswagen settlement and requires CCS. They bid under the name Retail EV Charging North/Central/South Texas LLC.

https://www.tceq.texas.gov/downloads/air-quality/terp/txvemp/txvemp-dcfch-projects-awarded.pdf

 

[atR1S]

I really like this idea. I am new to EV’s and know the first road trip that I take the in R1T will be quite a learning experience for me. I know my wife would be much less concerned about the whole charging thing if we could stop at Bucees-like options on our route

 

[Count Orlok]

never heard of Buc-ees. How about ElectiHooters?

 

[swhme]

never heard of Buc-ees. How about ElectiHooters?

Buc-ees is a Texas chain of giant gas stations (100+ pumps) notorious for plentiful, clean bathrooms, fresh food prepared on-site (fudge, jerky, burgers, etc), lots of fountain drink machines, etc.

It’s a cultural institution, and any road trip in Texas must include at least one Buc-ees stop. (They were going to make it a law, but they realize that was pointless, like making a law that you must breathe the air, everyone does it already)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buc-ee's

In my vision, this ev charging chain would be more upscale, for

 

[dordav]

Already doing this in Germany.

 

[COdogman]

doesnt buc-Ee’s already have chargers?
Seems like you’re just describing buc-ee’s of the not too distant future.

a valet? Haven’t you seen the documentary Ferris Bueller’s day off?

 

[COdogman]

I love the idea. I would settle for a Wawa with 6 working chargers though!

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